B3RK
by araconos
Summary: Bio-region level 3, region kronos. Known to its inhabitants as Berk. Hiccup is a shame to his father, who is ruler of their small colony. Scarred from a childhood accident, he vows to make himself worthy of his family name in the most daring way possible: Killing a Night Fury. Steampunk/Sci-fi HTTYD. Rated T for violence.
1. Chapter 1

"Hiccup! Astrid's here for repairs. Something about tha' bolt on her rifle being jammed." The boy sighed, setting aside his current project - a replacement prosthetic hand for one of the men who had lost his last raid - moving to the window where they took requests. He pushed aside some scraps of metal that scattered the floor, sighing yet again.

"If she'd stop friggin' using the rifle as a pistol and trying to free-scope it, we wouldn't have this problem." He mumbled as he pushed aside some cartidges of ammo, then leaned out the window. "Mornin' Astrid."

The blonde didn't reply, simply dropping the rifle on the counter. "I need it done by tonight. Scouts reported activity to the south, so we've got a raid soon." Without even another word or meeting his gaze, she turned and walked down the road.

"Yeah, nice to see you, too!" Hiccup said sarcastically, picking up the heavy rifle - not without struggle. "How does she lift this thing one-armed?" He said, groaning as he carried it through the shop before setting it on his workbench.

Hiccup had been working as Gobber's assistant in the shop for almost seven years now, starting when he had turned eight. Although he was more of Gobber's partner now - Hiccup himself did the majority of the delicate and more complex work, leaving Gobber to the production of larger things, such as mass amount of ammunition and molding the parts for the weapons.

The reason for Hiccups transfer to the forge was obvious. As the son of the Chief, he would have been expected to grow into a fearsome warrior, capable of carrying on the families honor. However, he had always been rather scrawny, more suited to running and building than swinging swords or shooting rifles.

Then there was the more obvious reason - his hand, or, well, lack of one. When he was eight, he had attempted to join his father in a raid in an attempt to impress him. The young boy had received a Nadder spike to his left arm for his folly, forcing the village herbalist to amputate it in order to keep the poison from spreading.

From the left shoulder down, Hiccup was a machine. His arm, an extremely expensive and complex machine of his own design, was made of lightweight titanum and had well over a thousand moving parts. Most people were rather creeped out by the sight of an arm that looked as if it had a mind of its own, so he usually wore a jacket and dragon-scale gloves when he was outside. However, here in the shop, the mechanized limb came in handy - especially seeing as Hiccup had made some... modifications to it. Whats the point of being a mechanic if you can't make your own prosthetic tricked out?

Gobber looked over from his workbench with a snort, eyeing Hiccup from the corner of his gaze. "She can mos' likely lift it one armed because she's not a twig like you are. Ya need some meat on those bones, boy." Hiccup waved him away with one hand, then wiped his brow.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Everyone else in town is a viking, im just... This." He said, waving his hand over his body. "Every time I tell her to stop shooting like that, and every time she just says 'I know what I'm doing' or just walks off." He thumped down into his chair, groaning. "One day its going to snap in the middle of a fight, and then she's in trouble."

Gobber just laughed. "Astrid does know what she's doing, son. And even if it does snap in the middle of a fight, she's handy enough with that axe of hers that it won't be a bother to her." Hiccup begrudging nodded.

Astrids rifle was one of Hiccups favorite designs. He had given her an unconventional, but effective. The barrel of the rifle was nearly a foot and a half long, with a six-by-four silencing box on the end, to muffle the sound of it firing. There was no flash, however - something he was immensely proud of.

The body of the rifle was shaped as you would expect - about a foot long, melding into a rubber padded stock. The whole thing from the suppressor to the stock was four feet long.

When he had presented it to astrid at her fourteenth birthday, the day she had decided to become a sheild maiden - as if she would ever be a simple caretaker. Many people, unsure of what her choice would be, had simply given her clothing or coins. Her closest friends, however, had known without a doubt what her choice would be.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut had pooled together money to buy her the axe that she still used today. Snotlout had given her a set of armor that his mother used to wear when she was a teen. Hiccup, however, gave her the first weapon he had ever made.

He smiled as he recalled her reaction when she had opened the case that went with it. She had sprung up and given him a hug, then grinned as he described how it worked and how it was different from other rifles.

"It uses specially made projectiles, capable of peircing through armor from over a mile away." He pulled out one of the projectiles from her pocket, tossing it to her. "It's like an arrow, kind of. Its sharpened at the end, because it doesnt have the same force as a normal bullet. But the rifle makes up for that. It has no flash, produces no recoil, and can hold nearly four hundred shots in a single clip. It's bolt action, and uses no gunpowder either."

The rifle was pretty much an extremely powerful crossbow, he explained. The bolt activated the mechanism that pulled back the cord, as well as loading another shot into the barrel. The scope mounted on the rail atop the rifle was the strongest he could find, capable of counting the hairs on a squirrel a mile away. She had loved it the second she first fired it, and commissions for similar weapons had poured in once she had started using it.

Hiccups smile faded as he recalled that that was the last time Astrid had so much as met his gaze. Shortly after that, she had begun to hang out with the other members of the group, pretty much cutting the useless Hiccup off. Fighters didn't make friends with forge masters.

Hiccup sighed, standing up from the chair. He fixed the bolt with ease - he just had to re-align the slide with the barrel, same as usual - and completed the prosthetic arm that he was working on before.

The rusty-haired teen stood from his workshop once his projects for the day were done, walking over to the welding station where Gobber was currently welding together two halves of a sword that had snapped last raid. Instead of conventional welding equipment, he was using the multi-purpose prosthetic hand. Which Hiccup had made.

As Hiccup approached, Gobber flicked up his mask, peering at the boy. "I s'pose you'll be takin the rest o' the day off to work on your project, I bet?" Hiccup nodded, and Gobber just shook his head before flicking the mask back down. "Well, off with ye'. I'm not one to encourage you're fool mission, but I can't stop ya."

As Hiccup turned to head to his house, he heard Gobber mumble under his breath. "Catchin' a Night Fury. What a fool."

(((((()))))

Hiccup had fallen asleep in his bed, the anxiety of the coming attack wearying him. It was nearly two in the morning before the klaxxon went off, startling the boy into awakeness. "Friggin lizards have the shittiest sense of timing. I spend eight hours waiting, and they decide to attack a half hour after I fall asleep." He rushed to the corner of his room, picking up a bundle of aluminum and fabric from his desk.

Snagging an apple on his way out, he bit into it as he pushed the steel door open. As a precaution, he quickly slammed the door closed, then waited five seconds. It was a good thing he did - moments after he opened the door there was a massive 'thud' that shook the house as something slamming into the door. He quickly pushed open the door, peeking out to look at the would - be attacker.

A large red Monstrous Nightmare was on the ground below him, its brains quite clearly scattered by the impact. Nightmares had thermal vision, allowing them to see the heat signatures of people through their shelters. Fishlegs - Hiccups only remaining friend - hypothethised that it was so they could find their mates over long distances. Seeing as Nightmares had the tendency to set themselves aflame, he was probably right.

He quickly jumped over the long neck of the dazed dragon, which began to regain its senses rather quickly. However, instead of rearing up to rejoin the fight as Hiccup expected it to, it instead flew to the south, away from the direction the dragons attacked from.

He watched the dragon fly away from the fight and its home for a few second, puzzled, then shook his head. Its sense of direction must have been muddled after the attack, or something of the sort.

He ran up the mountain that his house rested up against, carrying the bundle of rods and fabric under his arm. When he reached his destination, he was out of breath and had to rest on a rock, looking down at the town before him.

The battleground was a mess. The bards sung of a time where wars were clean and honorable, but that was against human opponents. Dragons had no battle lines, no strategy, no leaders that they could discern. They attacked at random, stealing supplies of food - mostly sheep, but sometimes grain and even cabbage if given the chance.

Many sections of the town were ablaze, the wooden homes burning. His house was the only house that was made of metal, seeing as the chief was the only one who kept important documents in his house.

If Hiccup had a pair of binoculars, he wagered that he could see Astrid in the center of the action, free-scoping her rifle. That afternoon she had come to pick up the rifle, lifting it up with her right arm, peering through the scope at a target in the distance they had for that very purpose. She had fired a shot, then pulled back on the bolt with her left hand, wrenching the bolt to the side. In the exact way that Hiccup had told her not to. If she had centered it on her shoulder, using it like a rifle instead of mounting on her forearm like a pistol or SMG, she wouldn't be having this problem.

Hiccup sighed, then moved to set up his contraption. "Gotta get set up before the alarm goes off." He began, mumbling to himself, but as he said so a low note rang out through the town.

Cries began to spring up from around the town, rising up to his ears over the clamor of the battle. "Night Fury!"

Hiccup began to move with haste, setting up the tripod legs of his building. He stomped on the spikes that secured the legs to the ground, then grabbed onto the handles mounted on the rear.

The contraption was a net cannon, which the people of Berk were used to using. They had to capture and study dragons somehow. However, this cannon was far more powerful than any they had ever used.

"Trial twelve, raid number seven." Hiccup mumbled as he peered through the scope. A high pitched whistle began to sound through the air, and the people below him jumped on the ground, covering their heads with their hands. In the middle of a fight normal, this would have been suicide. But as the whistling sound became louder and more high pitched, even the dragons fled the area, hovering up above the town like vultures.

The whistling grew to a louder, ear-piercing creshendo as Hiccup hurriedly pulled back various levers on the sides of the cannon. Suddenly, his eyes were drawn to the town as the whistle turned into a screech, and a massive boom sounded. A blue flash appeared as the Night Fury blasted past the barn, where they hid the sheep during raids. The blue light formed into a disc as it blew the roof of the barn to bits, the explosion shattering titanium and reinforced steel like a stone through a window.

The townspeople jumped to their feet, knowing they had a few minutes to regroup before the Night Fury struck again. To reasons unknown to the people of Berk, the Night Fury only attacked the three most important buildings when it showed up during raids - the Storehouse, the Barn, and the Granary. If it attacked more places than those three, their odds of surviving more than two or three raids was slim. They had never seen the Fury itself, but its handiwork spoke of a monstrous creature born of nightmares.

The hovering dragons descended upon the now-defenseless barn, snatching swine and sheep in their claws and fleeing to their Northern home. They snatched from the building freely for a few minutes, until the vikings managed to set up a perimeter around the broken building, chasing off the dragons.

Hiccup, his device now ready to fire, peered through the sights of his cannon nervously. The Night Fury attacked the three places, but not in a set order. So, to his regret, he had to wait for the third attack to begin before he knew where the Fury would strike.

The militia, now re-grouped, set into a steady, practiced rhythm. Half of them stayed at the barn, defending the animals that resided within. The other half mobilized and prepared to defend the site of the next attack, forming into a loose group. Attacks by the Night Fury were rare - it came maybe once every five raids, at random intervals, always keeping the vikings off balance.

The whistling returned, but the dragons and people skirmishing around the Barn continued fighting. All the others, however, jumped down to the ground or flew out of the blast radius.

The side wall of the Storehouse collapsed with a massive boom, revealing the meat and supplies that had been hidden safely moments before. The Inn was still about a quarter mile away from hiccup, but he was still rocked back on his heels from the massive shockwave the attack produced.

Hurriedly, he pointed the barrel of his cannon towards the Granary, then activated the program he had designed. The sights of his contraption came to life, clicking and whirring as the screen showed an enhanced image of the sky above the town, bathing everything in a green glow.

"C'mon, C'mon..." Hiccup mumbled anxiously, turning the massive cannon from side to side, scanning for his quarry. Doubts filled his mind, as they always did. What if the Fury attacked someplace else this time, instead of the usual spots? What if he missed and damaged one of the buildings?

He shook his head, trying to chase the doubts away. The whistling began again, and there was a frantic beeping from his machine. He glanced down at the screen, smiling as he saw his target outlined in a red circle. The machine began programming and figuring where he would have to fire in order to hit his target, factoring the in estimated speed of the drake and numerous other calculations.

Hiccup and Fishlegs hypothethised that the massive boom they heard during each attack was actually the sound of the Night Fury breaking the sound barrier, seeing as no actual projectile was fired. After several failed attempts and one false alarm - he had managed to confuse a Nadder with the Night Fury, whoops - he thought he had finally programmed the cannon properly.

The whistling began to reach its high point, and Hiccup tracked the form of the black dragon as it sped towards its target. "Dammit, you piece of junk, lock on!" he nearly shouted, staring at the screen as it tried to find the proper course.

The whistling increased to the scream that signaled that the attack was only seconds away, and the people in the town below hit the dirt, the dragons flapping out of the blast zone.

Just as the dragon prepared to fire, the red targeting disc turning white as it locked on. Hiccup immediately pressed the triggers on the top of the handles, wincing as the recoil of the cannon rocked him back. The whistle cut off, the blue shot missing its target and imploding mid-air. A loud, low pitched moan filled the air, and the people and dragons looked up, confused. Suddenly, every dragon on the island let out a roar, lifting off and fleeing to the north.

The stunned townspeople looked around, as if they expected the dragons to return at any moment. But as they kept watching, the drakes flew into the cloudless night, dissapearing over the horizon.

A raspy roar rang out over the town as the vikings realized that they had won the night, even though it had been more unusual victory. None of them were as proud as Hiccup.

"I... I caught the Night Fury. I caught the Night Fury!" He whispered, his shocked expression turning to a grin. "I did it! They're not going to believe that I, Hiccup the Useless, the one-armed weakling beat the Night Fury!" He whooped, then his grin faded slightly as he realized what he said. "They're not going to believe it unless I... aw shit. Find it."

Hiccup groaned, then headed down the mountain to find his prey. The rest of the town set to rebuilding what had been ruined in the attack, but within the hour, they were celebrating and recounting battle stories.

But come dawn, when the town had gone back to its slumber from the hectic night before, Hiccup was nowhere to be found.

**(((((())))))**

**Shh. Shh. Shhhhhh.**

**I wanted to write this. So I did. Deal with it.**

**Im not abandoning any of my other stories, I just wanted to start a new one. So. If you all enjoyed Steam-punk HTTYD, let me know. Im not sure if I should continue this one or not, but leave a review and tell me if you like it or not!**

**Anyways. I'll update the stories whenever I get the inspiration to do so, which should be pretty soon. Im halfway through the next chapter of Fractals.**

**Love Y'all!**

**Arac.**


	2. Chapter 2

The branches and twigs along the path cut into Hiccup's jacket and trousers, leaving small scratches and scrapes. He winced as one particularly thorny branch left a line of red on the back of his hand, and he sighed as he plucked the splinter out of the cut.

He was currently tracking what he thought was his best lead onto where the dragon had crash-landed. He had found a single black scale along the forest floor, as well as a few splintered and broken branches that littered the ground. He was out of breath and tired of hiking through these Thor-forsaken woods.

Finally, however, his hours of hiking paid off. As he crested a hill, tired and out of breath, he saw a massive scar carved in the land, as if something had smashed into it at high speed. Suddenly no longer tired, he sprinted down the other side of the hill, stumbling over a few exposed roots and falling into the trench. As he picked himself up, brushing the dirt off of his knees, he noticed another black scale, similar to the one he had found earlier. Further down the trench, there were more scales, as well as threads of titanium fibers.

The trench extended over the course of a quarter mile, and when he followed it to its end, he found a massive black shape struggling on the hill below him. He froze in his tracks, suddenly unsure of what to do. He _had_ captured the Night Fury, but... what do you do with a captured Night Fury?

The dragon was about twice his size from snout to tail, and it thrashed in the silvery net it was trapped in. Its pearly white teeth tugged at the netting, to no avail. Hiccup went to make his way down the slope, when his booted, clumsy feet snapped a branch.

The Night Fury instantly snapped to attention, ceasing its struggles instantly. Narrowed, green eyes focused on the approaching boy, and the mouth closed as it let out a snarl. Hiccup stumbled back a few steps as the drake struggled against the netting, but then it let out what sounded somewhat like a sigh. To his surprise, the dragon stopped struggling and laid limp in its prison.

Hiccup slowly approached the dragon, drawing his knife as he did so. The black, cat-like ears of the dragon shifted, flicking up as it heard the hiss of metal on leather, but the eyes didn't open.

Hiccup transferred the knife to his left hand - if this was a trap, he'd rather not lose another limb. He approached cautiously, his body shaking but his mechanic arm remaining perfectly still and balanced despite his fear.

Here was his chance to be a hero. His chance to go down in lore as the only human over the course of twenty generations to capture and kill a Night Fury! Songs would be sung in his name, Astrid and his former friends would have to recognize him again. His father would be proud of him, finally, and maybe he would be able to become chief.

He took another step forward. Another, then another. He was now within striking distance of the Night Fury - if it was going to attack, now would be the time. But the drake just laid there, its chest rising and falling as it took it breathed. For a few seconds, he stood there, ready to spring back, but then the dragon turned to him and opened its eyes.

Those green eyes were gigantic, easily the size of dinner plates. But the pupils were no longer narrowed into slits as they were before, but instead wide and took up most of the space of his eyes. It was a he, Hiccup noted. It looked him up and down, then sighed and laid its head back down against the ground, as if disappointed.

"Yeah, done in by a wimp like me. Embarrassing, I know." Those black ears flicked again, but other than that there was no movement. Hiccup took a few more paces forward, holding the knife out, and the dragon made no movement but to tilt its head back. It was if it was accepting its fate, like a proud warrior - like a viking.

Hiccup stood there for a few moments, then grabbed the knife in both hands. This dragon, this majestic beast, was braver than he. It knew that death was certain, but he didn't shirk or hide from it.

One black eye lid opened, peering at him, as if daring him to continue. Hiccup took a deep breath, then brought the knife down.

The sharpened knife cut through the titanium net as if it were warm butter. In a few moments, the net was in shambles, and it fell to the ground around the dragon. Hiccup took a few paces back as the drake stood, rising to its feet, and pointed to the North with his knife.

"Go! Get out of here." He said, stammering as he did so. What the hell was he thinking? Setting free a dragon, a Night Fury no less? He truly was a fool. Any moment now, the drake would turn on him, and he would have finally shown the world how foolish he was.

He took a few steps back as the dragon pulled itself free of what remained of the net, then extended its wings. It hissed at him, obviously confused - what a fool he was. It prowled forward, a shadow come to life, and Hiccup stumbled backwards, his boot snagging on a root. He looked behind him for a split second, and when he looked back it was upon him.

The wall of muscle and scale shoved him into the ground, and he winced as his head slammed against the ground. _This is it. This is where I die._ He could feel the hot breath against his cheek, and he closed his eyes, ready to feel those jaws upon him any moment. After a few seconds of nothing happening, however, he cracked one eye open, mirroring the exchange they had had just previously.

The dragon sat with its forelegs on his shoulders, its large green eyes peering at him. As he looked up at it, raising an eyebrow in confusion, it opened its mouth in what was almost a smile, cocking its head to the side.

Hiccup stared at the pink gums in confusion. "I thought you had teeth?" He said, blinking slowly. In a flash, the white fangs extended from the gums and snapped just inches from his nose. He flinched back, and the dragon jumped off of him, letting out a low gurgle that was obviously a laugh.

Hiccup sat up, scooting back until his back pressed against the wall of the dirt trench. The dragon sat back on its haunches, cocking its head to the side and watching him with those huge green eyes.

Suddenly, the dragon coughed, and Hiccup jerked back. Its shoulders shook, and it hunched over as it hacked something up.

"Oh, gross." Hiccup said, standing up as the dragon vomited. "Thats disgusting." The dragon finally coughed up a black object, and then licked the saliva off of it with its tongue. That task finished, it sat back on its haunches, its eyes suddenly a lot less playful and a lot more serious. It looked from the black object at its feet to him, then back again.

Hiccup took a tentative step forward, still convinced that that drake was just setting up a trap to kill him. After a few steps, however, the dragon just yawned and slitted its eyes, and he looked down at the object.

It was a black gem, rounded and shaped into a sphere. It was about the size of a clenched fist - his fist, not a massive viking one. After a few moments of looking at it, the dragon huffed and knelt down, pushing it across the ground towards him.

"You seriously don't want me to have that, do you?" He said, now mostly convinced that it wasn't planning on attacking him. The dragon pushed it again, sending it rolling until it bumped against his boot, then sat back on its haunches. He pulled off the glove on his left hand, reaching down to pick up the orb.

The sensors on his fingertips told him that the gem was perfectly smooth, and mostly dry. He rolled it in his palm, applying a little tension on it - it had the same strength and density of a diamond.

The dragon nodded its head to him, bowing for three seconds. Then, without fanfare, it turned and leapt into the air, flapping three times to get above the tree line. It looked over its shoulder once, then continued on its way.

Hiccup watched it fly to the south side of the island, and then looked down at the orb in his hand. He rolled it in his palm a bit more, then took of the glove to his natural hand. He tossed up in the air, and caught it in his right hand -

And suddenly he was in the air, muscles he didn't have flexing wings he didn't have. He gasped, and a roar came out. His tail - he had a tail? - whipped and hit a tree below him, and there was a massive pain at the very end of it. He felt himself losing balance, falling to the ground, and suddenly he

_He was the soft-skin two legs, kneeling at the torn-ground with the heart-soul-mind stone in his hand. He felt the warm blood through his veins, the strange coldness at his left paw. He could feel the softness of the dirt between his strange dull-five-claws, the wind on his scaleless flesh, but then it twisted and he_

Was falling yet again, the surface of the small lake below coming up to meet him, desperately trying to regain his balance, but his tail-fin wasn't working, wasn't letting him turn as it should, and then all was darkness as the water rose up to grab him.

Hiccup gasped, the orb rolling out of his hand and onto the dirt floor. His breath came in ragged gasps, and he could feel his heart pumping the fastest it had ever gone.

"The _fuck_ was that?" He said aloud, looking around. He looked at his feet, at the smoky black orb that rested against the ground below him. The sun rose up over the treetops in his small clearing, and he noted that the orb didn't shine.

He bent down slowly, tentatively reaching out with his left hand to pick it up. Nothing happened when he touched it with his metal fingers, so he grabbed it and raised it up to his eye level.

It really was pitch black. He knew that he should see his reflection in the surface of the orb, but he saw nothing. It seemed to suck the light into it and absorb it, as if it were a black hole. He rolled it in the palm of his cyborg arm, then slowly reached out the index finger of his human hand. He took a deep breath, then touched his finger to the side of the orb and then he

_was wet, shivering cold as he pulled himself out of the lake, staring up at the stone walls around him. He looked back at his tail, and with a sickening lurch he realized he would never fly again, that he was_

"...Crippled." Hiccup said, pulling back from the orb. He stared at it for a moment, then placed it into a leather patch at his waist and turning to go back to the village, knowing for sure that something had changed drastically that day.

For better or worse, he did not know. But something had changed.


	3. Chapter 3

Hiccup returned to the village about three hours after daybreak. Despite the hour, the townspeople were still for the most part asleep. The raid last night, as well as the hour or two the spent rebuilding, left the vikings tired and worn down. Save a few, the greater part were still at home in their beds. The three or four people he passed spared him a curious glance, but only one.

He was Hiccup the Crippled, after all. He was strange, and who knew what he was up to?

Hiccup stopped by the forge for a few moments, grabbing a couple replacement parts for his left arm. A particularly nasty tumble had left him with twigs caught in the delecate machinery of his forearm. Snatching the metal odds and ends off the shelves, he walked out and turned up the main road, walking up the fifty seven steps from the shop to his house.

Upon reaching the entrance to his house, he sighed briefly. The Haddocks had a very odd-shaped door, due to the fact that it was made out of an un-shapable metal. The door was a concave, three-meter tall slab of Adamantium. Every house in Berk had these doors, mostly to help defend them from the dragon attacks, but also as it was a symbol of what they were here for.

Adamantium was one of the most valuable and rare metals on Earth, and also the main reason why they had chosen to settle on this planet. And after nearly three centuries of dragon raids, it was still sought-after enough for them to remain. The metal was the strongest substance that humans had found in all their years of space travel, and was commonly used to plate the outsides of starcraft to protect them when entering atmospheres of planets.

Adamantium was extremely hard to use as building material, seeing as it was nearly impossible to bend or break, and had a melting temperature of well over 10,000° centigrade. The entire mountain that their island surrounded was filled with the stuff, making Berk one of the most profitable settlements that Earth had ever established.

"So, tomorrow the miners will be back." Hiccup mused aloud, pushing open the gigantic metal dome that was his door. The miners came in once a month for a period of three days, and only came immediately after a drake attack. His father called them cowards, but after Hiccup had talked with one of them for a while he knew otherwise.

A brief discussion with one of the miners, Red, had given Hiccup some very interesting dreams. "You see, in order to extract the Adamantium, we have to break it apart." The tall, lithe young man had told him.

Hiccup, only 12 at the time, had watched the man with wide eyes. Red was about six foot tall, clad in a grey jumpsuit. He had a burn mark above his left eye, and a mischevious glint as spoke to the boy. The most noticeable thing about Red, however, were his hands.

Reds hands moved constantly as he spoke, playing with the tiles of a small puzzle he had pulled out of his pocket. Red, noting how Hiccup eyed the puzzle, had handed it to the boy before pulling out another one - this one in the shape of a cube.

"But... Adamantium isn't breakable." Hiccup had said as he flicked the peices of the puzzle back and forth, his new arm doing remarkably well with the task.

Red just laughed. "Everything's breakable, kid. You just need the right tools." He placed the cube puzzle on the bench beside him, finished. "To get to the Adamantuim, we have to try a little harder than we would with anything else."

"You see, Adamantium is damn hard to break. Not impossible, mind you, but damn hard. It has a melting point of over 10k, meaning you have to use some pretty fancy equipment to get pieces you can transport away from the main mass."

"Well, first we have to make it possible for us to mine it, so we send in a super-heated drill down the area we want to make a mine-shaft. The drill carves a hole about a hundred meters wide and several kilometers deep, before it loses its heat and gets stuck in the bottom of the shaft. No big deal, drills are cheap compared to the money we make off of a single shaft."

"Then, you have fellas' like me, called jockeys. We climb into this contraption we just call the Claw, and put on a special sort of glove. You see, at the bottom of this contraption we're sitting in is a giant hand. The end of each finger is heated so it can melt through and cut the metal, and we use it to carve hunks away from the shaft wall."

He grinned, watching as Hiccup still struggled to finish his puzzle. "Then we send out the crazies. Men in heat-resistant suits head out, and attach pulleys to the carved off piece so we can lift it up to the surface. Then we do it again."

"Why do you call them crazy?" Hiccup asked. "Doesn't seem that hard to attach some wires to a piece of metal." Finally finishing the puzzle, he smiled triumphantly, raising it up for Red to see.

"Well. Adamantium naturally produces an extremely flammable gas in small pockets when it forms. These men are resting on the outside of the Claw, waiting to climb down and fix the harnesses on the metal. All they have is some flimsy, semi-heat resistant suits."

"If I move my fingers the wrong way, or fail to notice a pocket of gas..." Red's hands stilled for a moment, then he placed the puzzle down with a sigh. "Thats why my job is a little stressful. I have the life of five men resting in the palm of my hand at all times."

Hiccup and Red still communicated when they got the chance, which was rarely. Red had been promoted to lead jockey, and was now in charge of well over 25 teams of miners.

Hiccup looked at the massive grey door on the front of his house, wondering how long it took someone like Red to pry it off the inside of a mountain. He gripped the handle, and as always was amazed at how effortlessly and soundlessly the door opened, perfectly balanced on its hinges. He quietly stepped through the doorway, pulling the massive door shut behind him. The door made a soft 'click' as it shut, and Hiccup let out a sigh of relief before turning around and having a mini-heart attack as he bumped into a wall of fur and beard.

"And where have you been?" Stoick, Hiccups mountain of a father, rumbled from somewhere under the hair that covered his face. Hiccup grasped his chest, bending over as he tried to settle his heath. "D'you have any idea at all how worried I've been about you?"

Hiccup looked up at him, raising one eyebrow. "You think I'd have gotten confused for a sheep by a dragon?" He asked, and Stoick sighed.

"No, but you left your hunk of junk up by Gothi's lookout, and she had to drag it down here by herself after the raid. I know for a fact you wouldn't leave something you spent so much work on without a reason. Even if it was a stupid reason. So instead of leading the rebuilding, as is my job as chief, I had to spend two hours combing the village for you, and then another combing the forest until I gave up and decided to wait here for you. Where were you?"

Hiccup just sighed, pulling off his jacket to hang it on the hooks by the door. "I was in the forest. Thought I hit something, turns out I didn't." Stoick sighed.

"You went in the forest to look for a trapped dragon by yourself?" His father asked, settling his massive frame into one of the wooden chairs by the kitchen table once they left the entryway. The chair let out a groan as he sat down, as if protesting the massive pressure on it.

"It's not like there was anything to get attack by, but... Wait. You think I could hit something?" Hiccup asked, turning to his father, who was cradling a mug of warmed ale in his hands.

"Hiccup, I've used a pistol you made once to shoot the wings off a Terror fifty Meters away. Ive seen Astrid hit a bulls-eye on a target two miles away with a rifle you made when you were fourteen. If you think you can make something to catch the Night Fury, I have pretty damn good reason to think you can do it." Hiccup felt warm with the glow his fathers praise gave him, but the next few words stopped that.

" 'Course, even if you did manage to catch a dragon in that net of yours, odds are it would tear you apart if you got too close to it. I wouldn't put it past you to get eaten by a Terrible Terror if the thing got a jump on you."

Hiccup sighed, drinking from the glass of water he had poured from the sink. "Real glad to hear that you have that much confidence, dad." He sighed, putting the glass in the sink when it was empty. "I'm going to bed. Thanks for looking out for me."

Stoick rose to his feet as his son padded past him, headed to the stairs in the back of the house. Once Hiccup had left earshot, he settled back down in the chair, which let out yet another groan. Stoick reached into his vest, pulling out a slip of paper that he kept in a pocket right next to his heart.

"I don't know what to do about our son, Valka." The giant man said, rubbing his temples with his thumb and fingers. "He just doesn't fit in here. To survive in this world, you have to be strong. He's stubborn as I am, but he has your soft heart, Valka. I just... I just don't know what to do."

At the top of the stairs, Hiccup was sitting on the stairs, hidden in the shadows between the railing and the top of the steps. He rose to his feet quietly, walking up the final steps and turning down the hall to his room. In his mechanical arm, he rolled the strange black gem in his palm and over his fingers.

"Don't worry dad. Somehow, I get the feeling I wont need to fit in for much longer."

(((((()))))))

Three weeks had passed since Hiccup first freed the drake, which he had named 'Toothless.' He had make three or four trips each week to bring a basket of fish and salted meat for the dragon to eat, often times spending hours at a time studying the dragon as it roamed the small enclosure it was trapped in. He spend far more than just a few hours each week with Toothless, however - every night, he pulled out the black gem and held it in his natural hand for a few hours before he fell asleep.

Communicating with Toothless was... Interesting. Every time he touched the orb, even if it was just for a split second, he felt that sensation as if he was split into two bodies, and sharing them both with someone else. That first night, after he had returned with the orb and a skewed view of his world, he had held onto the orb until the sun had sank below the horizon. Just trying to understand Toothless was a task into itself - at first, the dragon hadn't understood what words were. He thought in terms of impressions, emotions, feelings - sharing mental pictures and emotions with the boy.

Now, however, Toothless and Hiccup had nearly perfected the art of communicating with each other. Toothless still used mental pictures and feelings instead of expressions and inflection, but he spoke to Hiccup in nearly fluent Common.

_I don't get it._ Hiccup had said one day, sitting with his back against one of Toothless's massive black wings. _Every record we have of humanity encountering a sentient species, we have found a way to communicate with them, even if they were attacking us. Why didn't we attempt to talk to your kind?_

Toothless shifted under him, tilting his head to peer at the human with one giant green eye. _You did, at first. But then we stopped talking, and started fighting._

Hiccup turned to look at Toothless, confused. "Wait..." he said aloud, then shook his head. _Wait. Humans and dragons were able to talk at one point?_ Toothless nodded his head, an action he had picked up from his human counterpart.

_Through ambassadors we called the Speakers. They would give a few trusted humans heartstones to hold _- the name of the black orb Hiccup now held in his hand - _and those pairs would act as translators to either race. _

Hiccup stood up, shocked. _Why do we not have any records of these things happening? _

_Because there was an uprising only a few years after humans settled here. Bands of rouge dragons, led by the daughter of our then-leader, raided all human settlements to start a war. Everything you had was destroyed, and all the bond-pairs were killed._

When prodded further, about the uprising or why they would wish to attack, Toothless refused to respond. Hiccup gave up trying to get answers on the subject.

Today, he was finishing up a project that he had been working on in his spare time. A bundle of fabric and Adamantium rods were curled up under his arm, disguised as scrap metal. He had just finished up his shift at Gobbers workshop, where he had (yet again) had to fix Astrid's rifle today. Hiccup had snagged the pieces of the expensive metal from the bind Gobber kept by his personal work station when the large man was on his lunch break. The fabric was used commonly in parachutes and hang gliders, so it should hold up for the task he had planned for it.

Hiccup carried the bundle through town, garnering the occasional glance as he passed people. No one stops a man on a mission, however, so he succeeded in making it to the edge of the forest with very little notice. Checking casually to make sure that no one was watching him, he ducked under some low-hanging branches to start on his way to the cove that Toothless shared.

When he was sure he was alone, he pulled the black orb from holding area he had designed in the upper arm of his robotic limb. Metal rods and plates shifted to cover up the gap that was created, and he grabbed the orb in his human hand. There was the familiar splitting sensation as he connected with Toothless.

_Evenin', bud. Sorry, I had to snag some things from Gobbers' before I -_

He was quickly cut off as he felt a wave of concern and panic. _Hiccup, they're coming. They had to wait for a while to form a plan after they lost me, but now they're coming. A lot of them. _He could feel the dread through the connection as Toothless shuddered. _They want to find me, and if they cant, they will raze this town to the ground._

The townspeople had been remarking about how it was strange that the dragons hadn't attacked for three weeks. They had become a little lax in their training, seeing as they usually attacked once or twice each week. If Toothless was right... And they were going to attack in full force...

_We don't have a chance._ He stood still on the trail his feet had carved over long weeks of travel, before shaking his head to clear it. _Well, my plan had better work._

_Plan? _Toothless asked him, confused. Hiccup grinned to himself, despite the grim situation.

_Let me put it this way. How would you like to fly again?_

(((((())))))

Astrid was in the midst of settling down for the night, clad in her nightgown and slippers. Her parents were upstairs, settling into sleep. She was in charge of the dishes, and she always liked to make sure that her gear was put together incase of a dragon raid. She first cleaned and oiled the leather straps of her armor to ensure that it was soft and supple. Then she checked her knife to test its sharpness, then pulled her rifle up to place it on the table with a grunt.

"It's so hard to sling this thing around with one arm." She muttered, dismantling it and cleaning each piece of grease and dirt. She then put it back together, making sure that a slide was in line with the barrel so it would shoot properly if a raid came. That task finished, she started to walk up the stairs to her room to head to sleep.

She stopped when the raid siren sounded over the town, letting out an internal groan. She rushed up the stairs, pulling her night gown over her head before yanking on a tight tee shirt and leggings, then rushing past her parents door to yank on her armor and sling her rifle over her shoulder. "See you out there!" She called over her shoulder as her parents appeared at the top of the stairs, confused and bleary-eyed.

She stepped out the front door, rushing to get to her usual perch where she sniped from. But her rush slowed and then stopped just a few steps from her front door. Her parents rushed out a few seconds after, but then stopped by her side. The three of them, along with other members, looked up at the night sky.

There were no stars to see, no clouds, no sign of the two moons that orbited their planet.

Only claws, wings, scales, eyes of green and red. The dragons had come, in the largest army of beasts they had ever seen. There were well over five hundred people out and ready to fight, and each one of them had more or less the same thought.

_We're doomed._

(((((())))))

Hiccup was running some final tests on the prosthetic tail fin, having to sit on Toothless's tail to keep him from flying off without the fin properly attached. His index finger currently had a screwdriver protruding from it, tightening the rings that held the fin to his tail. Hiccup finally stood up, inspecting the rigging system he had set up attaching the fin to the saddle he had mounted on Toothless's lower back.

_Alright. This is going to require co-operation, bud. _Hiccup said through their link, smiling as Toothless shook with impatience.

_Who cares? Lets fly already!_ The black dragon said, smiling at the boy with wide eyes as Hiccup stepped into the saddle, strapping his legs to the side so he wouldn't be flung off if Toothless made any sudden moves.

_Really wish we could try this in a situation that wasn't life or death. _Hiccup mumbled, and Toothless let out the low gurgle that was his laughter.

_Mothers teach dragons to fly by pushing them off of cliffs. If they are meant to fly, they will. If they are not, they die._

_And I thought my Dad had high expectations..._

Toothless spread his wings, the black skin taunt against the bones and muscle underneath. Hiccup grabbed ahold of the handles on either side of the harness, placing the heartstone on the top of the right handle. It locked itself into place with a soft click, and Hiccup pressed his thumb up against it.

_Lets do this._

**(((((())))))**

**Yo.**

**Hope you're all enjoying B3rk. Im enjoying writing it :3 so leave a favorite, follow and/or a review if you enjoyed it!**

**Arac**


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